Anyway to speed up the live view on a GF2?

I was playing with the GF2 I got recently. The live view display is really slow and laggy. So slow that it basically makes it impossible to use MF lenses. There's just too much lag. I'm guestimating it only does 3-4 FPS. Do I have something set wrong? Is there anyway to speed it up?

Wow. You hit it on the head. I was shooting indoors, but it's the daytime with the windows open so I thought there was enough light. I just went outside in the blinding sunlight and it's much quicker. So I guess it seems to be doing some form of exposure control. Is there a way to turn that off?

It's not exposure control. It needs a certain amount of light to create 1 frame to display to you. If it takes a long time to get that amount of light, then it is only going to be able to show you live view at a certain rate, like 10-15 fps. If you want that live view to be able to refresh the frames faster, you need to increase the amount of light reaching it. This is one of the downsides of an electronic viewfinder. Although, if you have that little light coming through the lens, you're probably at or past the limits of handholdability anyway.

It's not exposure control. It needs a certain amount of light to create 1 frame to display to you. If it takes a long time to get that amount of light, then it is only going to be able to show you live view at a certain rate, like 10-15 fps. If you want that live view to be able to refresh the frames faster, you need to increase the amount of light reaching it. This is one of the downsides of an electronic viewfinder. Although, if you have that little light coming through the lens, you're probably at or past the limits of handholdability anyway.

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It's not that dark at all. What you are describing is exposure control. So it's increasing the exposure. Is there a way to up the ISO instead. In comparison, my camera that cannot be named, has no problems with the live view refresh rate under the same light conditions and using the same lens. Be it out in the bright sunlight or in near lightless conditions, it's refresh rate is constant.

To me, "exposure control" means that the LCD is set to refresh at the shutter speed. So, If I set the shutter speed to 1/5 second, the screen will run at 5 fps. If I set the shutter speed to 1/2 second, the screen will run at 2 fps. My G2 has that feature, so that one may see the effect of the shutter speed on moving objects in the photograph (running water, cars driving along a freeway, etc), as well as to show the actual brightness of the image once you press the shutter.

What you are describing is just a minimum amount of light necessary to display the image. As an example, if it takes 100 photons per pixel to display an image on the back of the screen, and you're only getting 1,000 photons per second, you're going to have a laggy screen. The only way to make this refresh faster is to increase the exposure value inside a room. The human eye is capable of adjusting to different amounts of light, and people often overestimate the brightness indoors. The LV of an average indoors room during the day, with windows open, is usually between 5 and 7, which is as dark as New York City at night. Both of those situations are multitudes darker than a typical outdoors scene, which is at least 8 stops brighter.

If your other camera is a Sony NEX or other larger-sensor compact, then consider for the same shutter speed and aperture, the NEX will have 60% more surface area capturing light. This is the benefit of sensor size.

It's not that dark at all. What you are describing is exposure control. So it's increasing the exposure. Is there a way to up the ISO instead. In comparison, my camera that cannot be named, has no problems with the live view refresh rate under the same light conditions and using the same lens. Be it out in the bright sunlight or in near lightless conditions, it's refresh rate is constant.

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It's increasing exposure to the EVF display only, not to the captured picture. The GH2 is better than prior m43 cameras, hopefully the GH3 will be better still. But that's one of the trade-offs compared to an OVF. On the flip side, when the OVF is showing you an image so dark you don't know what your photographing, the EVF will brighten the display so you can see what's in the frame. Trade-offs.

I was playing with the GF2 I got recently. The live view display is really slow and laggy. So slow that it basically makes it impossible to use MF lenses. There's just too much lag. I'm guestimating it only does 3-4 FPS. Do I have something set wrong? Is there anyway to speed it up?

What you are describing is just a minimum amount of light necessary to display the image. As an example, if it takes 100 photons per pixel to display an image on the back of the screen, and you're only getting 1,000 photons per second, you're going to have a laggy screen. The only way to make this refresh faster is to increase the exposure value inside a room. The human eye is capable of adjusting to different amounts of light, and people often overestimate the brightness indoors. The LV of an average indoors room during the day, with windows open, is usually between 5 and 7, which is as dark as New York City at night. Both of those situations are multitudes darker than a typical outdoors scene, which is at least 8 stops brighter.

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Sensor readouts don't work that way. They are not theshold devices where you either get no response or a full response. Their response is proportional to the amount of light received. Even one photon will get a response. It may be industinguishable to background, but it will be response. It's not like an assembly line where each photosite waits until it gets 100 photons before firing. There are also ways to bin photosites together to boost response. All these ways are how adjusting the ISO response of a sensor works. So saying the refresh rate is low because there is not enough light is not a physical limitation. It's a limitation of the software implementation trying to seek a certain response. Thus my question. Is there a way to set the threshold for the live display on a GF2?

Sensor readouts don't work that way. They are not theshold devices where you either get no response or a full response. Their response is proportional to the amount of light received. Even one photon will get a response. It may be industinguishable to background, but it will be response. It's not like an assembly line where each photosite waits until it gets 100 photons before firing. There are also ways to bin photosites together to boost response. All these ways are how adjusting the ISO response of a sensor works. So saying the refresh rate is low because there is not enough light is not a physical limitation. It's a limitation of the software implementation trying to seek a certain response. Thus my question. Is there a way to set the threshold for the live display on a GF2?

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Yes, I know that sensor readouts aren't threshold devices; I understand very well that exposure, the basis of photography, exists. While the sensor doesn't wait until a discrete number of photons to fire, it does wait until a discrete number of photons to refresh the LCD, because it forces a certain exposure per frame for operation. So, since we seem to be on the same page with regards to that, no you can't adjust the refresh rate of the LCD by setting it to intentionally underexpose, to preserve framerate.

Also, you can admit you have other cameras. If people are uneasy with the idea that competition exists and that m4/3 cameras are not the end-all, be-all of the market, then that's their problem. The other cameras, be it Nikon 1, Sony NEX, Samsung NX, Pentax Q, or even a $60 Kodak point and shoot, are nothing to be ashamed of; use them proudly if they are helping you attain your intended results. I'll start: I use a plethora of cameras, from a Mamiya RZ67 to Olympus XZ-1 to Nikon D200 happily and without pause, alongside my Panasonic G2 when the situation calls for it. Two months ago, my mother needed a camera, so I bought her a NEX-3 that was on heavy markdown, which I, and she, are happy with.

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